I thought it would be a nice day to hit the stream. It was a beautiful day, but I got skunked! There were fish rising everywhere and feeding on midges and stoneflies yet I was unable to hookup. I stopped at the tackle shop and picked up some 7X tippet to use with my midges. Even with the the 7X on I could see my tippet glimmer in the sun from at least 40 feet away. I thought if I can see it surely the fish can see it and are spooked by it. What does everyone else do on sunny days? Do you just stay home or go out and nymph? Any help assessing this situation would be of great help.

Just some of the thought processes I would go through...If you feel they were spooking from your tippet, move to give a different presentation or try a downstream drift to them so the fly is the first thing they see. I will also try a midge dry without hackle so it floats flush on the surface to give a different tippet / fly dynamic. With my midging, I find micro drag is typically the culprit more than leader shyness.

froghair5 wrote:What does everyone else do on sunny days? Do you just stay home or go out and nymph?

I go nymph.

The fish may or may not spook due to the glimmer of the leader. If it's that sunny, shadows are probably a bigger issue though. Try to approach them with the sun in front of you, stay low, and try not to line them.

Like David said, try fishing the dry down to them so they see the dry first and not your leader. To achieve a good drift you can try a dump cast. On your forward stroke drop your rod tip to the water. Your leader and tippet will pile up and give you a drag free drift. Another thing to try is time when the fish comes up. Cast down to him a bunch of times but pull your fly out of the water two feet ahead of him. On cast eight or nine let him have it. This works pretty good a lot of the times. But not all the time......

Posted on: 2009/3/30 10:53

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Those who have no vices usually have some really annoying virtues!

What David said, any time the fish are rising is the ideal time for dry flys. Lots of good suggestions and opinions mentioned. Out of curiosity, did you happen to be using fluro or mono? I know lots of members prefer or advocate mono, I happen to prefer fluro. I've found that when more stealth tactics are required, fluro has helped my cause in combination of the other suggestions made so I'm curious as to what kind of leader you were using.

My ideal dry fly weather seems to be when we get a rain and a cold front in the evening after a period or really warm weather, the following morning, things having cleared up and the sun is out and it's cool and the water is just slightly off color, and those trout have been feeding off the top for days and all of a sudden all those bugs are gone, except for the one i'm casting. Which is probably an ant.

Calm days are the best, and rising fish should be a good sign that fish will take something off the surface, although that isn't always true. I normally start with an attractor and see what the fish do as it drifts by. Then as other mentioned present that dry a few different ways. Next I normally will tie a nymph behind the dry and fish both so you have both an indicator and the chance that something will take the dry.

Like the other posters, I've fished to risers in everything from heavy rain, even snow, to bright sunshine. The one factor that seems to really deter rising is wind. When it's blowing hard enough to ruffle the waters sureface, I've rarely seen the fish rising.

As for why you couldn't get these fish to take, maybe you just didn't have the right fly?

how do you tell if they are taking emergers or dry flies. and dont tell me the obvious of seeing them, because with polarized glasses that is pretty hard sometimes as well as my particular poor color vision.

Posted on: 2009/4/13 14:52

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If you have to ask why, you wouldn't understand....asking how shows some insight to your intellect...

Splashy rises forms can mean they are taking emergers. But would'nt use always and never for fly fishing descriptions.

I probably have the hardest time with "emerger" fishing. Have heard lots- of getting the flies to sit low in the film of the water trying to mimic a bug breaking throught the surface tension of the water. Heard of some guys trying to get there flies to go under the water and get them (or try to get them) to pop back up to the surface.

Recently started fishing wet flies and that can get you into some fish that emergers. Have it done it enough to elaborate really any further though.

There is no "ideal" dry fly weather. As long as the water temperature is in the low 50s or higher and fish are rising, it doesn't matter. But my guess is that your problem had nothing to do with the weather. You might have been able to see the leader, but there is no way trout rising to a fly would be spooked by 7x -- 4x maybe -- but definitely not 7x. My guess would be your presentation was doing the harm. Could have been micro-drag, wrong fly, color, pattern... could've even been you. Were you out of sight? Were you wearing bright colored clothing?

Posted on: 2009/4/19 0:15

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"I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't." --John Gierach

Personally, I like a light rain or mist, and slightly cooler than average temps. Hopefully this combo will happen in the middle of a major hatch cycle. This occurred a few years ago on Spring Ck., and the Sulpher fishing was superb, and earlier than usual for a couple hrs. When it cleared off, it was about 45 min. til dark, and suddenly the same fish became very hard to fool. Went back to my pet nymph under dry combo for some icing on the cake. Have seen the same thing happen on stocked streams as well. When the bugs can't dry their wing to take off, they become sitting ducks for hungry trout.